Irish immigrant, here since 1920s, dies 4 weeks shy of citizenship

Josephine Stout, 90, lived in Chicago since she was a toddler and only found out in the late 1990s that she was undocumented. (Nancy Stone, Chicago Tribune)

Josephine Stout, an Irish immigrant who was undocumented even though she'd lived in Chicago nearly nine decades, died late Monday, about four weeks short of her dream of becoming an American citizen.

A front-page Tribune story about Stout in December detailed how she came to this country from Ireland in the 1920s as a toddler but got her green card only recently after a lengthy struggle to prove she was a permanent legal resident. Stout was 90.

"My grandmother always believed in her heart that she was an American," granddaughter Sandi Stout said Tuesday morning as she sat in the living room of the North Lawndale apartment she shared with Stout.

Until 2010, Stout had lived most of her life in a tiny apartment in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood. It was a hardscrabble life, filled with tragedy. Her son was murdered in 1985. Her daughter was stabbed to death in 1992, leaving behind seven children whom Stout and her husband took in.

After her husband died, Stout needed public aid. And in 1999, during a routine status update of her public aid file, Illinois officials asked her to prove her citizenship. When she couldn't, she was ruled ineligible for public aid. Stout instantly became an undocumented immigrant, desperately struggling to care for her grandchildren.

Because Stout's case stemmed from a time when immigration laws were so different and there was no electronic database of files, it would take 12 years and a search across two continents to find the documents to prove Stout was here legally.

Social workers at an Irish immigrant organization helped locate her birth certificate and get her an Irish passport. An immigration specialist pored over ancient ship manifests to find the ocean liner on which Stout's family traveled.

Officers with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services certified information by searching the national archives. And a couple of nuns and a volunteer were unwavering in their support.

Meanwhile, Stout worked odd jobs to care for her grandchildren.

On Tuesday morning, several of them gathered in the small North Lawndale apartment to make funeral arrangements.

Breandan Magee is the executive director of Chicago Irish Immigrant Support, a social services organization that had worked with Stout since 2010. He submitted her application for naturalization in December.

Ordinarily a person has to wait five years after receiving a green card to apply for citizenship, but the process for Stout was expected to just take a few months because she had her five years, decades ago.

In January, as Stout's health was failing, Magee asked immigration officials to take the unusual step of expediting Stout's application, said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency was in the process of doing so when Stout died.

Magee said his organization has received donations for Stout and was using that money to pay for her final expenses.

"She was delighted to become a green card holder," Magee said. "Josephine was a woman who showed such great fortitude. In my eyes she was indicative of that fighting Irish spirit you see in so many women of her generation."